The present invention relates to an automatic answering telephone connected to a telephone line having a three-party call service. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for automatically connecting an incoming telephone call, when a user (i.e., a called party) is not present, to a telephone located at his/her external location so that the user can selectively answer the incoming call.
In accordance with a three-party call service typically provided from a telephone office, when an incoming call from a third party wishing to converse with a first party already engaged in a conversation with a second party is provided to the first party, a switch-hook flash temporarily holds the second party while the subscriber's connection is switched to the third party, thereby enabling the first party to converse with the third party. Further, during the conversation with the third party, if the first party releases the switch-hook flash condition, the first party can again converse with the second party.
On the other hand, even though the first party has already been engaged in a conversation with the second party, if the first party wishes to converse with the third party, this is possible by effecting the switch-hook flash condition for a moment. Then, after the completion of the conversation with the third party, the first party can again converse with the second party.
When a call comes in during the user's absence, the conventional automatic answering telephone asks the calling party to leave his/her telephone number and other pertinent information, or sends the information left by the calling party to another telephone number preset by the user.
However, according to the conventional automatic answering telephone, there may arise a problem in that it is difficult to smoothly connect the calling party to the user when the calling party is desirous to directly converse with the user who is not present at the location of the telephone called by the calling party.
Solomon et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,361,295, is related to the present invention in that it has several elements in common with the present invention.
Namely, Solomon et al. discloses an anonymous interactive telephone system for connecting a caller to a user. As noted in FIG. 5 of Solomon et al., when a caller calls a predetermined telephone number, the call may either be immediately forwarded to a user at a different number or a message is played to the caller asking the caller if a message is to be recorded and if not, the caller is asked whether they wish to be connected to the user.
If the caller wishes to be connected to the user, the user is called and the call is transferred to the user.
Not that the subscriber in Solomon et al. is not given the option of selecting whether or not he or she wishes to receive a particular call from the caller. The only option to the user is whether or not they wish to not receive calls during preselected period of time.
In an alternative embodiment of Solomon et al, the caller first records a message which is then played back to the user. The user can then decide whether or not he or she wishes to be connected to the caller.
On the other hand, in the present invention, a inquiry is always immediately made to the user after a call is detected to determine if the user wishes to receive a call from the caller. There is no recording of a caller's message nor is there a playback of the recorded message to the user after a call has been detected.
Furthermore, the caller is asked if he or she wishes to receive the telephone number of the telephone located at the user's external location, thereby precluding and eliminating the anonymity of the user's telephone number at the external location, as required by Solomon et al.